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  3. What's the "keeping it real" history that Americans are taught the whitewashed version in school?

What's the "keeping it real" history that Americans are taught the whitewashed version in school?

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  • T [email protected]

    I knew that book was solid when my father said it was too radical lol

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    wrote last edited by
    #11

    Heheh....a very wise man once told me that 'every truth begins as a heresy'. In the 30+ years since I was told this, I have found it to be completely accurate. 🙂

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    • return2ozma@lemmy.worldR [email protected]
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      wrote last edited by [email protected]
      #12

      Another book to mention - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me

      I've only flipped through briefly, so I can't elaborate on the points. But I've heard reccomendations for it, and it seems exactly along the lines of this discussion.

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      • return2ozma@lemmy.worldR [email protected]
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        wrote last edited by
        #13

        We have a classist system with heavy dash of racism and starting 40 years ago low class mobility

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        • H [email protected]

          I did not find out about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study until adulthood. Its the biggest thing I can think of.

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          wrote last edited by
          #14

          If you find Tuskegee shocking and horrifying, wait until you learn about the “Father of Gynecology.”

          There’s still a huge problem in medicine where doctors and nurses believe that Black people have more natural pain tolerance. It was in textbooks up into the 80’s.

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          • return2ozma@lemmy.worldR [email protected]
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            wrote last edited by [email protected]
            #15

            The Tulsa Race Massacre.

            Fred Hampton's story and assassination.

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            • P [email protected]

              The Tulsa Race Massacre.

              Fred Hampton's story and assassination.

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              wrote last edited by
              #16

              American kids are not taught about those in school.

              tigeruppercut@lemmy.zipT 1 Reply Last reply
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              • A [email protected]

                Most of the people on the Mayflower were businessman. Very few were the legendary “Pilgrims” - who were less fleeing persecution and more the fact that they couldn’t persecute others anyway.

                The entire narrative we teach in school is about the Pilgrims is bullshit.

                Most US history educations are going to give you very sparse details about the brutality of the genocide of Native Americans. Smallpox blankets were real. Treaties were treated as suggestions rather than anything binding - we still don’t really honor them today.

                A substantial cause of the Revolutionary War was that England wanted to reserve areas for Native Americans. Not even out of the goodness of their heart, but because it was fucking expensive to send and kit soldiers because colonists kept fucking with the tribes. All of those Intolerable Taxes and shit were kinda needed to fund the fact that colonists kept sticking their dick in a beehive and had to get epipen-ed by the Crown.

                The Civil War was 100% about slavery. The “states rights” bullshit was fabricated in the decades after the war. There has been a full century of deliberate assaults on the real history of slavery and the Civil War in the United States. The unique character of its brutality (race based chattel slavery is not like what was practiced by other civilizations) is underplayed. (“B-b-b-but the first slave was an Irish guy owned by a Black man” or other bullshit - deliberately conflating things like indentured servitude with chattel slavery.)

                The modern American police force is basically a direct descendent of slave patrols. The brutality against black men is also a long legacy - they made purses out of Nat Turner’s skin, and probably even ate parts of him.

                Slavery didn’t really end. During reconstruction and afterwords, communities passed bullshit laws to re-enslave black people. It’s very easy to make an argument that the “war on drugs” in the US is a way of maintaining slavery, because the 14th amendment explicitly has a carve out that slavery is permitted if you are convicted of a crime.

                The Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was used to justify the Vietnam War, was a false flag. The idea that soldiers returning from war were spat on or harassed was something very deliberately propagandized. Not that it didn’t happen, but not to the extent it was portrayed.

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                wrote last edited by
                #17

                As someone from the north, we were very explicitly taught that the civil war was about slavery.

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                • return2ozma@lemmy.worldR [email protected]
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                  wrote last edited by
                  #18

                  I'm not from there but I'll say that The US doesn't intervene overseas in order "to spread democracy" or "to protect the world from the evils of communism" but to protect its economic interests, to increase the profits of capitalists through industries such as weapons and oil, and to make sure that no socialism occurs that threatens the stranglehold of capitalism.

                  Some books to check:

                  • Major General Smedley D. Butler - War Is A Racket
                  • Tim Weiner - Legacy Of Ashes: The History Of The CIA
                  • William Blum - Killing Hope: US Military And CIA Interventions Since World War II
                  • Noam Chomsky - What Uncle Sam Really Wants
                  M B C curious_canid@lemmy.caC 4 Replies Last reply
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                  • D [email protected]

                    As someone from the north, we were very explicitly taught that the civil war was about slavery.

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                    wrote last edited by
                    #19

                    As someone from the south; we were not. I was lucky enough to have a cousin with an anti-authority complex and internet access, but most of my classmates were not.

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                    • D [email protected]

                      American kids are not taught about those in school.

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                      wrote last edited by
                      #20

                      I believe that's the OP question. Americans aren't taught those in school,so they're the "keeping it real" history.

                      softestsapphic@lemmy.worldS D 2 Replies Last reply
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                        wrote last edited by
                        #21

                        Even PragerU admits it nowadays, to their rare credit. I flipped through some state standards, and even the usual suspects do agree now.

                        However, a quick scroll on news comment thread about confederate statues or a convo with a high school teacher in like fucking Durant or something will reveal that Lost Cause bullshit is still alive and well.

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                        • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zipT [email protected]

                          I believe that's the OP question. Americans aren't taught those in school,so they're the "keeping it real" history.

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                          wrote last edited by [email protected]
                          #22

                          The only parts of post reconstruction slavery told are that the blacks marched peacefully and we just decided to start being nice to them and integrating schools/bathrooms/neighborhoods.

                          Growing up in the US I was never taught about any violence the US government or society committed against its own people. That also excluded the Ludlow massacre and similar events where violence was used against workers instead of blacks.

                          Tulsa race massacre and black Wallstreet, the 1985 MOVE bombing, the Ludlow massacre, all our coups, totally absent from American history classes.

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                          • P [email protected]

                            The Tulsa Race Massacre.

                            Fred Hampton's story and assassination.

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                            wrote last edited by
                            #23

                            I grew up in Oklahoma and was not taught about it in high school. I believe they finally added it to the standards in the mid 2010’s. I’ve talked to many people who learned about it from the Watchman series of all things.

                            The Oklahoma Supreme Court shut down a request for reparations by survivors a few years ago.

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                            • E [email protected]

                              Another book to mention - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me

                              I've only flipped through briefly, so I can't elaborate on the points. But I've heard reccomendations for it, and it seems exactly along the lines of this discussion.

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                              wrote last edited by
                              #24

                              Have read it and can confirm that it ought to be taught in primary schools. That along with 1491 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.

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                              • P [email protected]

                                The Tulsa Race Massacre.

                                Fred Hampton's story and assassination.

                                P This user is from outside of this forum
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                                [email protected]
                                wrote last edited by
                                #25

                                Another lesser known black massacre was Wilmington. Here's a great American Experience about it

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                                • return2ozma@lemmy.worldR [email protected]
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                                  wrote last edited by
                                  #26

                                  Would be nice to learn about other countries too.

                                  I grew up in Indonesia and would like to know how much of what we were taught regarding the Dutch and Japanese occupations were actually true. I believe we weren’t even taught about the fact that the Dutch attempted to retake control after Japan’s surrender after WW2. What I remember we were taught was just WW2 happened and we fought for independence.

                                  I visited the Netherlands last year and talked to some locals who said their history lessons around that was quite different than what I learned (how long were we occupied, how bad the situation was, and the battles that followed WW2)

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                                  • starlinguk@lemmy.worldS [email protected]

                                    Women are equal now!

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                                    wrote last edited by
                                    #27

                                    no, women are still property

                                    starlinguk@lemmy.worldS 1 Reply Last reply
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                                    • return2ozma@lemmy.worldR [email protected]
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                                      wrote last edited by
                                      #28

                                      In keeping with this month's news, if you don't know what the Japanese American Internment Camps are, or were rather, you might read up on them. I wasn't taught about them at all.

                                      Another thing that's I think more niche but still ought to be taught is the history of censorship of anti-war protests. There were some terrible rulings about a hundred years ago that were later reversed, and that all made it possible for people to protest Vietnam the way they did.

                                      Finally, one piece of history that's missing from many high school civics classes is any discussion of how unions themselves led to the minimal labor laws that we have today, that union members were killed in large numbers in the process of pushing for said laws.

                                      ? 1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zipT [email protected]

                                        I believe that's the OP question. Americans aren't taught those in school,so they're the "keeping it real" history.

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                                        wrote last edited by
                                        #29

                                        The question was about whitewashing, which implies that the topic was at least mentioned.

                                        tigeruppercut@lemmy.zipT 1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • 0 [email protected]

                                          I'm not from there but I'll say that The US doesn't intervene overseas in order "to spread democracy" or "to protect the world from the evils of communism" but to protect its economic interests, to increase the profits of capitalists through industries such as weapons and oil, and to make sure that no socialism occurs that threatens the stranglehold of capitalism.

                                          Some books to check:

                                          • Major General Smedley D. Butler - War Is A Racket
                                          • Tim Weiner - Legacy Of Ashes: The History Of The CIA
                                          • William Blum - Killing Hope: US Military And CIA Interventions Since World War II
                                          • Noam Chomsky - What Uncle Sam Really Wants
                                          M This user is from outside of this forum
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                                          wrote last edited by
                                          #30

                                          Yea I guess the only thing to add is that any time it appears its helping democracy tends to be a side affect rather than the primary mission. IE Iraq, Sadam was a colossal piece of shit and I'm glad he's gone, but the whole Iraq war was an illegal war for oil.

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